The Finale: NBXCX

NBXCX has quickly become one of my favorite races of the year. I have been closely following the Vittoria Series this fall and I can say that all races have their charm: Gloucester with its history and views, NohoCx with fun, tricky sections in the woods, or Supercross with pure, fast power sections. However, finals are always the most exciting to watch.

Having snow at Supercross had scared everyone about how hard NBX was going to be. Fortunately, we lucked out again with a sunny weekend with temperatures around low 40’s for the afternoon races. That said, pleasant weather in the woods, quickly changed to biting winds by the water throughout the weekend as the spectators huddled around fire pits.

There’s not much to say about my race weekend, because on both days I had mechanicals. Broken rear derailiuer and flat tubulars are always expensive to fix, but usually staples at CX races along with many other problems. So, lets forget about me and talk about this event. 

NBX’s course is contained within Goddard Memorial State Park. The crew does a great job utilizing the whole park and creating interesting segments. Barriers are conveniently placed by the food trucks, the beach section can be watched from a ledge, and the start is an exciting wide sweeping turn that starts under a massive Red Bull sponsored banner. 

I like that this is a race where there’s a perfect balance between power and technical abilities. It reminds me of NohoCX in that way. The sand run definitely rivals HPCX and the interesting step up on the second day made the whole section trickier and allowed racers to stay close together making the race more exciting. 

The course is designed in such a way that it’s spectator friendly through certain sections only. However, there are many interesting sections in the woods, but they are really hard to get to. As a photographer, I don’t think I had to run around this much in any other race. Most of the sections are blocked off by metal fences instead of tape without any gates. I’m pretty sure that it’s for the safety of the racers and lack of resources, but an average spectator does not even see the exciting root-y downhill (or uphill depending on the day) on the far side of the race.

NBX is towards the end of a long CX season. A lot of people opted out of it either because they were burnt out or the race was just too far away. If you have not raced here, I urge you to mark it on your calendar for next year. And if you get mechanicals like I did, you will still be happy watching an awesome race, surrounded by great people.